Solved Context menu cleanup time!

lepton · Jul 16, 2009

I really like Windows 7... but I like my Windows experience to be "minimal". I don't like stuff like "libraries" popping up when I already have my libraries... they are folders!

I also hate all the "convenient" shortcuts in context menus. There are sometimes so many that it is a dozen items.

So I've attempted to remove these visual distractions through various registry keys... the ones I've found so far are below.

But I need help finding just two more!

I haven't found the keys for "Turn on Bitlocker..." and the "Share with" context menus. I've looked everywhere and cannot find them. I cannot believe these are in my face... when they are in "properties" dialog boxes instead. Does the Microsoft usability team really think
saving ONE mouse click is worth a context menu item? Why not toss context menus for every control panel in there too. Sheesh.

Anyway, if someone knows about those two keys.. please post! In the meantime below is my "cleanup" reg file.

To make this work just paste these lines into a .REG file and run it. Do this at your own risk!

Code:

; Delete icons from the explorer left pane:
 
; HOMEGROUP ICON: Default item should be "Other users". Delete the folder from the registry.
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}]
 
; LIBRARIES ICON: This is the registry entry This is the Libraries icon. Default item should be "Libraries". Delete the folder from the registry.
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}]
 
; NETWORK ICON
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}]
 
; Recycle bin
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}]
 
 
; Context menu: "send to"
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\SendTo]
 
 
; Context menu: Restore Previous Versions
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{596AB062-B4D2-4215-9F74-E9109B0A8153}]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{596AB062-B4D2-4215-9F74-E9109B0A8153}]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{596AB062-B4D2-4215-9F74-E9109B0A8153}]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{596AB062-B4D2-4215-9F74-E9109B0A8153}]

Other keys I tweaked:

Code:

; Reduce menu popup pause
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"MenuShowDelay"="50"
 
;Disable the User Account Control (UAC)
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"EnableLUA"=dword:00000000
 
; NTFS, Disable 8.3 names and Last Access (speeds up disk access)
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem]
"NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation"=dword:00000001
"NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate"=dword:00000001
 
; Disable Low disk space checks
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoLowDiskSpaceChecks"=dword:00000001
 
;Turn Off Remote Assistance
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Remote Assistance]
"fAllowToGetHelp"=dword:00000000
 
 
 
; Disable various network snooping activities
; Stop sending packets to teredo.ipv6.microsoft.com
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\TCPIP6\Parameters]
"DisabledComponents"=dword:00000008
 
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences\HME]
"DisableDiscovery"=dword:00000001
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NlaSvc\Parameters\Internet]
"EnableActiveProbing"=dword:00000000
 
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDriveTypeAutoRun"=dword:000000FF
"NoSharedDocuments"=dword:00000001

Enjoy!

Brink · Jul 16, 2009

Hello Lepton, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Not sure, but you might see looking for Context Menu types in the free program ShellExView may help find them.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

lepton · Jul 16, 2009

Shawn,

Ahhh... Thank you! This is a handy utility. It didn't disable the context menus (I tried EVERY key and even rebooted)... but it made me remember about the Sysinternals Process Monitor. I used it to dump the registry queries made by explorer.exe.

After looking through the data I found the keys!

Now my context menu is a private party with my favorite friends: TortoiseSVN, WinRAR, and Beyond Compare... and no uninvited guests!

Here's the keys to delete:

Code:

; Share with
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Sharing]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Sharing]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Sharing]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Sharing]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\LibraryFolder\background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Sharing]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\UserLibraryFolder\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Sharing]
 
 
; Bitlocker
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\encrypt-bde]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\encrypt-bde-elev]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\manage-bde]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\resume-bde]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\resume-bde-elev]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\unlock-bde]

And with IE and Media Player uninstalled... Windows 7 is the best ever!

Ohh... and try TrueCrypt before considering Bitlocker. I like it.

Brink · Jul 16, 2009

Lepton,

I'm happy to hear that you found them. Thank you for sharing this.

rontokyo · Jul 17, 2009

Lepton, you are possibly a lifesaver. I also like Win7 but dislike Explorer to the extent that I was just about to give up on it and go back to XP. Like you, I rely heavily on Explorer and use folders exclusively -- a system I've used for over 10 years and have no need to change. "Libraries," "Homegroup" and the rest are unnecessary clutter for me.

I'm a bit of a computer noob, however. Could you give slightly more info re how to make the registry changes & what specific info should be copied/pasted and what should be deleted. As registry changes come with a little risk, I want to make sure I get it right.

Again, many thanks !

lepton · Jul 18, 2009

rontokyo,

I'm glad I could help! I too use Explorer for my job... many hours a week managing files and directories. Having to skip over context menus I don't need is annoying. Even if it is one or two things... it is "neural bandwidth" consumed and lost.

I just don't understand Microsoft. They know not everyone needs everything. But some of their Marketing people think "No you MUST see Bitlocker pop up", and they have no (non-registry) way of disabling it.

Anyway, I found these keys necessary to remove the MENU items for Homegroup/Libraries! My explorer is completely clean now.

Code:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\

Take ownership of and delete. They have to be forcibly deleted because of permissions (go take ownership in the permissions dialog).

Code:

Windows.includeinlibrary
Windows.Share

lepton · Jul 18, 2009

I'm a bit of a computer noob, however. Could you give slightly more info re how to make the registry changes & what specific info should be copied/pasted and what should be deleted. As registry changes come with a little risk, I want to make sure I get it right.

It is easy. Just open Notepad and copy/paste the lines above into it. Then save that file to a name with ".reg" on the end. The icon will turn from being a text document into one with little green cubes on it.

You then run that file and those features will be removed.

But! This is permanent... if you want to save those keys you must export them from the registry first. This involves manually navigating within Regedit.exe and then right clicking on the folder ("key") at the end of that path. In there is an Export command to save it. This saves it to the same kind of .reg file that you can run and restore the feature.

You will notice the little dash in front of those keys "[-blahblah]" which means remove them.

The registry was a terrible idea though... MS wanted to store settings in a database instead of files... and this is what we get. A giant swamp of dead/uninstalled keys, GUIDs which points to GUIDs which point to COM interfaces, and no logical grouping of keys by vendor to save/restore settings.

I feel happy when a program stores settings in an INI or XML file in C:\users. I know I can back up my settings and use it on another computer without the !@^%!@^% registry.

lepton · Jul 18, 2009

More to add. I noticed those icons still showed up in 32-bit apps in File/Open dialog boxes. This is because there is a Windows-on-Windows layer duplicates everything (even the registry) for 32 and 64-bit. This also means you have either 4 or 6 copies of every DLL/EXE in C:\Windows. I have 6 copies of Notepad.exe... Efficient!

So just add these lines to your .reg file:

Code:

; Delete icons from the explorer left pane (including 32-bit on 64-bit OS):
 
; Homegroup icon
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}]
; Libraries
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}]
; Shared documents
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}]
; Recycle bin
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}]
; Network
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}]

Tepid · Jul 19, 2009

program stores settings in an INI or XML file in C:\users. I know I can back up my settings and use it on another computer without the !@^%!@^% registry.

I totaly agree with this. More apps need to adopt this method. There is no reason for a large majority of apps to even touch the registry at all anyway.

Barefoot · Oct 13, 2009

lepton, I love you! I've been asking about this and even Brink didn't have the answer.

This is more than just helpful. You showed how to customize/personalize W7 and you showed the way to learn how to do that and more. I absolutely love to learn how to do these things, not just apply someone else's script. I have read about and even played a little with "show process" but now I'll go back and try to use it.

Bravo.

MagicBob · Nov 3, 2009

Registry/File Duplication

First off-thanks! Well-done research. You can't imagine (or perhaps, you can) how much this is going to help me. I'm an application packager-so knowing how everything is stored is crucial for my job. This will be a bookmarked page!

On to some clarity. The registry was, (and is still), crucial to performance. Back in Windows 3.1 days, the registry provided the mechanism by which OLE and DDL were possible - it was originally intended only for such registrations.

Then applications started having a zillion config settings, and storing them in INI files was problematic. Performance could be an issue with slow drives of the time. Security was nearly impossible - you could only set who could edit the file, not who could change specific settings. Plus you'd have to store an ini file for each user's specific settings.

Then there's the issue of re-entrance...if one person had an INI open for editing, this could, at a minimum, prevent another user from saving their settings, or worse, even launch the app!

Lots of issues.

The registry uses a binary tree database...something that's been around a long time (Novell's 3.x servers used it as the network tree database-the equivalent of a Domain). The architecture was known for good performance (much faster to do a binary search of the registry in RAM, than to sift through an ASCII file on disk.). Being file-centric is a significant performance bottleneck for UNIX/Linux. Fortunately, those OS's compensate by being lighter in general.

Since most apps conform to the MS spec of using the reg, there's little reason to change it, and for a single workstation it's fine. But, this is part of why AD uses SQL - the registry is simply too slow and cumbersome for more than a certain number of objects (if I recall, the old Domain database could handle up to 40,000 objects, but only if tweaked).

Unfortunately, the big problem is from app vendors (MS included) who store too many settings in too many places - there's no way to define an application view of the registry database - so you could see one apps settings. Some of this is also a legacy issue, where apps share some settings. It's possible to have a more-rigidly designed spec, but MS doesn't want that-the current setup makes it nearly impossible to simply copy an app from one machine to another, providing some level of anti-piracy through obfuscation.

So it's now a legacy system, that's not worth changing. The cure is far worse than the "disease".

As for duplication of files-that also suffers a similar issue. It's only because MS has chosen a broad scope of supportability (you can theoretically run ANY Win32 app on x64), including apps that have poorly-designed dependencies on previously existing 32-bit apps, like Notepad. (Note that some of those "poorly-designed" apps are MS's own!) The current 64/32 model is a stepping stone. We'll soon see an OS that is pure 64 with no legacy support...that will show up on the server side first. I predict sometime before 2020 (basically 2 OS cycles).

Ahh...my thoughts for a Tuesday morning. Coffee's done, time to shower n go to work. Thanks for listening.

Thanks again for finding these settings!

kd45 · Nov 3, 2009

Lepton,

This took some work to find all of these keys. Thanks for posting the information. I think my biggest complaint about Windows is how they give it too many "shortcuts" which impede work flow.

Now if someone can just figure out how to save folder view settings so they open where I want, and how I want. I could really care less if they snap to the side of the screen. I just want some of them to appear the same place I put them the last time I moved them.

KD

Manyk · Nov 19, 2009

Thank you for this thread. The first thing I tried to do with 7 was remove the multitude of redundancy. Loving 7 more and more because of this thread and indeed this site.

MissPride · Jan 3, 2010

Thanks for the tips! My Win7 install is looking even cleaner thanks to the registry keys posted here.

subyroo · Jan 3, 2010

Lepton thanks for this tip mate:

Reduce menu popup pause
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"MenuShowDelay"="50"

DrToxic · Jul 29, 2011

Clean Up?

I'd rather organise than clean up... i like my long menu.

[edit] okay, maybe remove a couple.. but i will add more to replace them. the context menu is my favorite menu.

rithvikvibhu · Aug 25, 2012

Thanks

Thanks!

lepton said:

More to add. I noticed those icons still showed up in 32-bit apps in File/Open dialog boxes. This is because there is a Windows-on-Windows layer duplicates everything (even the registry) for 32 and 64-bit. This also means you have either 4 or 6 copies of every DLL/EXE in C:\Windows. I have 6 copies of Notepad.exe... Efficient!

So just add these lines to your .reg file:

Code:

; Delete icons from the explorer left pane (including 32-bit on 64-bit OS):
 
; Homegroup icon
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}]
; Libraries
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}]
; Shared documents
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}]
; Recycle bin
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}]
; Network
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}]

jonnyhotchkiss · Nov 2, 2013

Hi!

Bookmarked, many many thanks. Very useful stuff.

I understand that some entries (in HKCR\*\shell\) are expandable, easily managed via ShellMenuView

there are other entries that are exhibiting the behaviour (or that you'd like to exhibit the extendable functionality, i.e. hold shift to display via the fully-extended context menu) but do not have an Extended 'String Value', and do not exist in that Shell folder.

Copy as path (useful!) I think it defaults to 'extended', but I don't know how it achieves this?

It has a 'ContextMenuOptIn' String Value, is that what I need?

I think I'd like to 'extend' stuff like restore previous verison, share with (maybe remove that) WinRar etc.

Any ideas?

Back to the analysis. thanks again

jonnyhotchkiss · Mar 3, 2014

anyone thinking about doing some tidying, I highly recommend regscanner (nirsoft).

I can advanced search (ie "contextmenuhandlers\sharing"), select multiple items... export them, and delete (multiple).

Awesome

jonnyhotchkiss · Mar 3, 2014

remove "share with" {context} with one operation

Solved Context menu cleanup time!

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